Evidence of meeting #12 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
The motion is to sustain the ruling of the chair.
(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 6; yeas 5)
This does pose an interesting question. It actually takes us back to our earlier discussion, that if this amendment were adopted—and I may have to seek some counsel from Mr. Cole on this question—it would effectively engulf the other amendments that we have before us, save and except two amendments to clause 3 proposed by Mr. Lemay and an amendment proposed by Ms. Crowder to clause 1. All of the other clause 2 amendments are, for all intents and purposes, negated by the adoption of this amendment.
At this point in time, we haven't adopted this amendment. It is, I assume, available now for discussion, because it has not been ruled inadmissible. But should this amendment be adopted by the committee, it does call into question the other amendments that we have, save and except those three.
I'll get to you, Ms. Crowder, in a second.
If members wish, we can proceed to consider debate on the amendment, but just keep in mind that we'll have to come back to this other question.
Ms. Crowder.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
It's up to the committee.
Is there agreement to suspend for five minutes?
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Yes. Since this particular amendment would supersede all other proposed amendments to clause 2, I wouldn't mind a quick clarification with my colleagues on the opposition side.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
If the opposition wants to have a five-minute caucus, I have no problem with that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
All right, we'll suspend for five minutes. We'll resume our meeting at 4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
We'll resume consideration now.
We'll now debate the amendment put forward by Mr. Russell, subsequent to the ruling on its admissibility being overturned. We'll now hear questions or comments on the amendment.
Mr. Duncan.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
This morning we had the debate on the motion from Jean Crowder in the House of Commons. There was quite a bit of discussion revolving around unintended consequences. I think we've just seen a classic example of unintended consequences. The opposition has tabled amendments. There was a lack of recognition that one of those amendments would usurp many of the other amendments. This is why I think this is the wrong venue in which to be trying to tinker with a very complex issue that courts have ruled on and that we're trying to respond to, and this is why we set up the exploratory process.
This amendment would certainly increase significantly those eligible for Indian status in Canada, in comparison with Bill C-3 as tabled. It goes much further than the Court of Appeal for British Columbia, so I think it's completely consistent with the chair's ruling that this is beyond the scope of the bill.
I don't know what more to say about it. This is about as broad an amendment as one could imagine. The unintended consequences go well beyond what any witness.... If this were what had been tabled in Bill C-3, we would have had a very different set of witnesses come before this committee, I can assure you. It is most inappropriate that we would even entertain something this broad.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
Mr. Chair, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments and his acknowledgment that this would entitle a far greater number of people to be registered and not discriminated against. I think that's a fine acknowledgement on the part of the parliamentary secretary, which only speaks to the problems and the deficiencies in the bill before us, which is why we try an amendment strategy.
The reason we've introduced this is that the government has not responded in any way, shape, or form to much of the protest, if you want to put it that way, on the part of so many witnesses and on the part of parliamentarians such as us, and even most recently the motion that was put before the House this morning. I think that adequate offers were made and adequate avenues were open to the government. This amendment speaks to the fact that we had to respond in the most appropriate way we know how.
The parliamentary secretary speaks about unintended consequences. We knew very well that this particular amendment would engulf, to some extent, the other amendments that were coming before us. When it comes to consequences, I would only say that we had government witnesses come before us who really could not speak in any adequate way, shape, or form about the consequences of Bill C-3. So I doubt whether one can speak now with any more clarity about the consequences of this particular amendment that's before us.
The only consequence would be that more people would be entitled to register. It would end gender discrimination once and for all. To me, that is totally consistent with at least the principle of the bill, which was to extend or to try to eradicate some form of gender discrimination under the Indian Act. The argument here would be that the scope and principle go together and that you would have to deny both in order to deny at all.
I think it's totally consistent with what the government at least purports to do in Bill C-3.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, this is clearly a complex and very difficult bill, and it's difficult for everybody around this table. Whatever way we go is a no win. Whatever way we go there will be litigation. Whatever way we go there will be people who are dissatisfied. I have a great deal of difficulty, in this day and age, supporting any proposition, any amendment, that would consciously leave one group of people in this country less equal than others, and in this situation, it's clearly aboriginal women, or some aboriginal women and their children, who would be less equal than others.
I know Ms. Crowder's effort this morning to put the motion before Parliament was to deal with the issue in a manner that's respectful to all parties, to allow this committee to do its work.
I want to read into the record, because I think it came after we had hearings, a brief that came from LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, which has often been an intervenor on a number of equality cases at the Supreme Court. They say in their brief, and I hope you'll bear with me so I can read this:
The Government of Canada can and should amend the Indian Act to fully and finally eliminate sex discrimination from the status provisions. The Government of Canada is not limited to implementing only the remedy required by the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Mclvor v. Canada. The Court’s ruling in Mclvor does not create a “rigid constitutional template”. The Supreme Court has affirmed the role of Parliament to “build” on a Court’s ruling, particularly where the judicial scheme “can be improved” by the legislature. For example, in its decision in R. v. O’Connor in 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada laid down a procedure for the disclosure of confidential records of sexual assault complainants which purported to balance the equality rights of complainants and the rights of accused to full answer and defence. In 1997, Parliament enacted amendments to the Criminal Code which differed from the procedure delineated by the Court and which ostensibly went further to protect women’s equality rights and protect their confidential records from disclosure to those accused of sexually assaulting them. In upholding the new legislation in R. v. Mills in 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada emphasized the importance of Parliament building on the Court’s earlier decision in O’Connor.
Mr. Chair, as parliamentarians who have heard from a whole host of witnesses who are all aware of the inherent inequity in this bill and that there will be intended consequences of gender discrimination, gender inequality, I think it's incumbent upon us as legislators that we move forward with my colleague's amendment. I would hope that we would speak out with some unanimity on the reality of what gender equality means in this country.
Conservative
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With the greatest of respect, what's incumbent upon legislatures is to be responsible. I'm going to speak quite frankly to members of the opposition who have not had as much Kool-Aid as others have and believe that this specific motion here is the direction we want to go. I think we should understand that this bill as it's written now responds to the McIvor decision. If we look at the second prong of this exercise, or this process, as the parliamentary secretary raised in debate today, it's important that we understand we should not make the same mistake that the lower court made. There were unintended consequences at that court. The court of appeal rightly confined the issue, and Bill C-3 responds to that. It deals urgently with more than 45,000 people to whom it will have application.
In my view, the exploratory process deals with the second part of this process, and that is to reconcile. We heard that theme consistently here. With the greatest of respect around the gender equity issue, we know that there are competing claims and a host of rights that are at stake here: first nations governance, capacity, issues around status or registration membership and citizenship.
I would have thought, frankly, that we would have been thinking about more refined amendments for discussion, debate, perhaps negotiation, rather than this blanket kind of thing that not only sets us up for unintended consequences but is not consistent with what we heard, more importantly, from the stakeholders. There continues to be debate and serious questions around the implications of something like this proposed amendment from Mr. Russell. What we did hear is a desire from stakeholders and witnesses to understand through another process how we can, or if we can, deal with some of the other issues that would arise as we expand this.
This government was committed to Bill C-3 as it's written because it deals with the court decision. That's the substantive part. As a matter of policy, we entertained ourselves with the very serious realization that a process would have to take place to see how this would go on implementation. That's the responsible way to go.
I urge members of the opposition who are thinking about supporting this amendment to understand that jeopardizing it by supporting this kind of amendment, as the language is now, puts the people who are contemplated by Bill C-3, as it stands right now, in jeopardy and disables and disarms some of the quality contributions we heard from stakeholders with respect to a host of other issues and rights that pose serious competing claims on what I believe, and we believe, should come from the first nation stakeholders themselves.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Thank you, Mr. Rickford.
I have no other speakers on the list. Is the committee ready for the question?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
That brings us to additional amendments on clause 2.
In light of our earlier discussions in terms of the scope of the amendment that we just passed, I really should at this point defer to Ms. Crowder, who is up next in terms of her amendment, and this is in respect to the deletion of lines 32 through 35 on page 2 of Bill C-3.
Ms. Crowder, I'll put it over to you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
You wish to withdraw the amendment? Okay. That's fine.
Mr. Lemay, over to you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Okay. So you choose to withdraw that as well.
That takes us to the second amendment proposed by Ms. Crowder, in respect to the creation of a new paragraph under 6(1) entitled (c.2).
